Turkey has had a bad preparation! They will try to leave Ivan Hašek’s team behind in the group at the Euro

Turkey’s participation in the European Championship is probably not a big surprise to anyone. The Turks will play in Group F, where they will most likely face Ivan Hašek’s team for second place. Which players are missing in the nomination?

Turkey will face Portugal, Georgia and the Czech Republic in Group F. While there is no doubt about the favourite and the underdog, the fight for the second place is likely to be very close. Will the Turks leave Ivan Hašek’s selection behind?

Team roster

Turkey does not have a clear-cut number one among the three poles. Altay Bayindir, Mert Günok and Uğurcan Cakır have made the nomination. It is likely to be a battle of the latter two, as Bayindir has virtually no playing time at Manchester United.

In defence, Enes Unal and Çağlar Söyüncü will be noticeably missing. This duo has experience in the British Isles, however, both of them have picked up injuries and thus will not feature at the European Championship.

The back row may be the weakness of the Turkish team. Mert Müldür, Zeki Celik, Abdülkerim Bardakci, Ahmetcan Kaplan, Merih Demiral, Samet Akaydın and Ferdi Kadioğlu have been included in the nomination. These players certainly don’t have a particularly great reputation.

But the same cannot be said for Ardu Güler, only 19 years old and a Real Madrid footballer. The skilful midfielder has been injured for a significant part of the season, despite scoring six goals in ten La Liga games. He should be one of the team’s driving forces at the Euros.

Let’s not forget Hakan Calhanoglu from Inter Milan. In addition to him, İsmail Yuksek, Kaan Ayhan, Okay Yokuslu, Orkun Kokcu and Salih Ozcan also squeezed into the nomination.

The Turks have tremendous strength in the offense. Yusuf Yazici, Cenk Tosun or Baris Alper Yilmaz can be a great weapon not only in the match against the Czech Republic.

The coach of the team is the forty-nine-year-old Vincenzo Montella from Italy. The dress rehearsal was not very successful as Turkey failed to beat Poland 2-1 in Warsaw, despite a huge shooting advantage. The Turks fired a staggering 22 shots in the match, but it was not enough to score more than one goal.

In total, Turkey has not won any of its four preliminary matches for the EURO, most notably the 6-1 loss to Austria in March. The team has been the subject of criticism in recent days, which will probably not help the players at the European Championship.

Source: Turkish national football team